PCT: Days 86-88

After 8 days on trail we treat ourselves to a double zero in Bishop.  Waterboy wakes up early as usual and meets General for coffee and breakfast both mornings at the huge bakery in Bishop.  It’s a bit overwhelming when you walk in the door with more baked goods than you could ever imagine.  We get a little bit of gear shopping completed, pick up resupply boxes, and take the kids to the bouldering gym.  Christina invited us to her house for dinner, and we enjoy home cooked food and great company.  She also has a son who’s a similar age to our kids, and they have a great time playing.

We spend a lot of time discussing upcoming trail conditions which look to be at least as snowy as Forester Pass and maybe steeper on 2 of the next 3 passes.  We contemplate skipping forward to areas with less snow, and then coming back to the Sierra in a couple weeks after it’s melted out more.  We have both safety and timing concerms if we continue through the Sierra.  The snow slows us down, and we’re worried we won’t be able to beat fall snow in Washington if we continue hiking through snow now.  The downside to all of this is we’ve developed a great tramily and know we may not see them again if we jump.  We make the tough decision to jump forward to Sierra City and now have to figure out how to get there.

Being in somewhat remote locations without a car makes travel a bit complicated, but we luckily have friends who happen to be driving across California in the next couple days.  We plan to take a bus to Reno where they’ll pick us up and drive us to Sierra City.

We hear a familiar voice while boarding the bus and realize it’s Tony who we started with but haven’t seen in at least a month.  He’s headed to Reno to catch a flight so we have plenty of time to catch up on the 4hr bus ride.  The bus ride goes without issue, and we check into a casino hotel which is a bizarre world compared to where we’ve been living the last 3 months.  We get an unfortunate update from our friends that they’ve tested positive for Covid along the way.  They luckily aren’t too sick, but catching a ride with them is no longer an option.  There are no busses where we need to go so the plan is to attempt a long Uber the next morning.